nettle-grasping in it on her part.

"Yes, he was. But somehow he didn't seem so. Perhaps it was because I
flew into such a rage with him about what he called his 'crade chogue.'
But it wasn't _only_ that. Something about the chap himself--I can't
tell what." And Fenwick becomes _distrait_, with a sort of restless
searching on his face. He sits on, silent, patting Sally's little white
hand in his, and letting the prized cigar take care of itself, and
remains silent until, after a few more interesting details about the
"great row" at Ladbroke Grove Road, all three agree that sleep is
overdue, and depart to receive payment.

Rosalind knows the meaning of it all perfectly. Some tiny trace of
memory of the fat Kreutzkammer lingered in her husband's crippled
mind--something as confused as the revolving engine's connexion with
the German volkslied. But enough to prevent his feeling the ten francs'
worth of cigars an oppressive benevolence. It was very strange to
her that it should so happen, but, having happened, it did not seem
unnatural. What was stranger still was that Gerry should be there,
loving Sally like a father--just as her own stepfather Paul Nightingale
had come to love _her_--caressing her, and never dreaming for a moment
how that funny little article came about. Yes, come what might, she
would do her best to protect these two from that knowledge, however
many lies she had to tell. She was far too good and honourable a
woman to care a particle about truthfulness as a means to an easy
conscience; she did not mind the least how much hers suffered if it
was necessary to the happiness of others that it should do so. And
in her judgment--though we admit she may have been wrong--a revelation
of the past would have taken all the warmth and light out of the happy
and contented little world of Krakatoa Villa. So long as she had the
cloud to herself, and saw the others out in the sunshine, she felt
safe, and that all was well.

She would have liked companionship inside the cloud, for all that. It
was a cruel disappointment to find, when she came to reflect on it,
that she could not carry out a first intention of taking Colonel Lund
into her confidence about the Baron, and the undoubted insight he had
given into some portion of Fenwick's previous life. Obviously it would
have involved telling her husband's whole story. Her belief that he was
Harrisson involved her knowledge that he was not Fenwick. The Major
would have sa